ACLU concerned ‘religious dogma’ will compromise health care access

ACLU concerned ‘religious dogma’ will compromise health care access

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington has asked Gov. Jay Inslee to stall any hospital transactions out of concern that mergers with religious organizations could compromise patients’ access to health services.

The ACLU, along with 10 other civil rights and health care advocacy organizations, sent Inslee a letter requesting he enact a six-month moratorium on any decision by the State Department of Health on proposed or pending applications related to hospital ownership, operation, or management.

“Our concern is that when secular hospitals merge with religious corporations the result is that the health care facility will have to follow the religious dogma,” Doug Honig, spokesperson for the ACLU, told KOMO Newsradio. “That can limit the access of patients to medically appropriate and lawful procedures, specifically end-of-life care, reproductive health care and it can affect care for lesbian, gay and transsexual people.”

The organizations asked Inslee to conduct a community health needs assessment to evaluate the impact of mergers with religious health care corporations on patients’ ability to access medically appropriate health care services.

“This would give a chance for state leadership to get more information about pending transactions, learn more about how they would affect health care access in Washington state and get some real concrete data on this,” Honig said.

Inslee’s spokesperson David Postman said the governor has not seen the ACLU’s letter yet, his staff is reviewing it.

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In the complete article it says: “The governor recently spoke with UW Medical Center officials about the hospitals plan to affiliate with the Catholic health care system PeaceHealth.” So I think this was initiated because of this merger.

An atheist friend of mine tried to get a job at a similar institution in California: Catholic Healthcare West. Although the job had nothing to do with religion or even patient care (it was a computer related job) she said the interviews were filled with subtle and not so subtle questions about her “values” and trying to make sure they were consistent with the institution, which was supposedly acting in the secular world and subject to the secular rules about not discriminating.

In 1987 I went to a job interview where I was asked about my religion, politics and stance on abortion and birth control.
That never should have happened. But here in the US we know not to contest it.

I have faith the religious will use whatever means to acheive their goals. Whether they are illega…

I was amazed that they had the chutzpah to ask my friend the questions they did. The worker’s rights laws are more geared toward the worker in California then most US states. I had to deal with them the rare occasions I had to fire someone and we had to document everything really rigorously to make sure we had clear grounds and wouldn’t be sued. But I think an issue is its a lot easier to sue once you work for a company then when you are trying to get a job. When you are applying for a job there is always so much wiggle room that its easy for an employee say “we didn’t hire them because of X” when in reality it was for reasons of politics or religion.

This is one of the areas where even here in Australia which is generally fairly secular there are attempts to bully government into changing legislation about abortion under the threat of closing their hospitals. End of life is also an issue where I would hate to be stuck in a Catholic Hospital. Education and health should no more be out sourced to religion than police or the army for much the same reasons.

The main hospital in Vancouver is called St. Paul’s. It was originally run by the Catholic church. There are a number of old religious statues, plaques and the like celebrating its history. I find these creepy, but I think it would be excessive to try to erase history. There is no sign today of religious interference in its day to day operation. Nearly all the hospitals in Canada are government run.

In the states they are private. I can see why someone might want to go to a hospital where only their own kind went, where the food was what they were familiar with, also entertainment. However, you have to arrange things so people not of that religion are never forced to use that hospital. This would require secular control of the major hospitals.

Over my life I have had the misfortune to run into fundamentalist Christian specialists who go berserk when they found out I was gay and unapologetic about it. There should be some way of directing these loons away from treating gay patients.

Quebec has such a layer of Catholic shit spread all over it you can’t walk down a street that isn’t named after a Saint. Most hospitals, those that aren’t Jewish, are Saint somebody. There are so many religious icons it makes me puke. It’s part of the reason I left the province, that and my language is illegal.